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Greenmarket's 'Bread Guy' Says So Long For some people, it’s a shrink or hair stylist who helps them navigate life’s twists and turns. But for many devotees of Greenwich Street’s Greenmarket, it was Allan Cohen, better known as “the bread guy.” For 13 years, he was there at his stand outside Washington Market Park in Tribeca, offering up morsels of wisdom and a ready ear right along with the challah, onion rolls and rye. Alas, those halcyon days are over. Cohen, 60, stunned his many fans and loyal customers this summer by deciding, suddenly, to retire. As he walked through the market the Saturday after he quit, shaking hands and saying his goodbyes, many shoppers were visibly distressed. “He’s a genuine and loving human being, and his bread is absolutely magnificent,” said Paul Spitzer, one of Cohen’s many regular customers. Spitzer says he got to know Cohen through his weekly visits to the stand, where they would chat about everything from children, to marriage, to work. “He’s just a mensch,” said Spitzer. “A grand mensch.” “I’m going to miss him,” said Lori Mogol, another market regular. “And I’m dieting and not even eating bread.” Suzanne Tinley let out a gasp when she learned of Cohen’s departure—and she hasn’t lived in Tribeca for five years. Tinley recalled dropping by the market last November and finding that Cohen not only remembered her, but also her children. “He remembered how Henry loved his sourdough boules,” said Tinley. “We went away with twice what we paid for.” Such largesse was common: Cohen often gave away bread and rolls, especially to children, and even,full disclosure, to this reporter. Cohen, who lives in Queens, began selling bread on the street in 1994, when the Greenmarket organization asked Tribeca Oven, a bakery then located on Hudson Street, if it wanted to participate. Yet Cohen kept selling at his stand, and eventually at four other greenmarkets around the city, because he liked it. But Tribeca, he said, was one of his favorites. He attributes his affection for the neighborhood in part to the intensity of the 9/11 experience, which he says made him and others more appreciative of the value of human connections. “There’s nothing like this area of Manhattan,” he said. “There’s a community, a karma here, that you don’t have anywhere else.” Back in 1999, his son Keith had to take over for him after he was mysteriously afflicted by a neurological disorder that paralyzed him from the waist down. Cohen’s struggle to overcome doctors’ predictions that he was unlikely ever to walk again was chronicled in the Trib in 2000, burnishing his reputation with customers even more. So why is he giving it all up? Cohen said he had been thinking about retiring for a while, but woke up one morning in July and decided it was time. “It’s hard work. It’s brutal in the summertime,” he said, by way of explanation. He also mentioned that a recent shoulder injury would require surgery and recovery time. “I put two and two together,” he said. “Sometimes you just have to say, ‘This is it.’” Cohen plans to devote more time to his sculpture (a stone carving sometimes graced his stand) and he is toying with the idea of teaching an art class. Cohen hopes that the suddenness of his decision will make it easier for him to withdraw. “It’s a bitter pill for me to swallow,” he said. “I wanted to do it quickly because it’s too painful. This is very much a part of me.”
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